“US Secretary of State John Kerry is flying to the Middle East as he seeks to secure a “framework” for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

He hoped to achieve consensus on core issues so progress could be made towards signing a comprehensive treaty by April, a senior US official said.

The issues include security, borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.”

Located to the right of that opening paragraph in which the BBC focuses readers’ attention on the subjects it has defined as “core issues” since July 2013, is a link to the BBC’s own backgrounder of the same title, which also appears as an additional link at the bottom of the article.

In that backgrounder the “core issues” defined by the BBC as being at the heart of the conflict the current talks are supposed to end are “Jerusalem”, “borders”, “settlements”, “refugees” and “security”.

Those five subjects are presented according to what the BBC perceives and wishes to promote as being the Israeli, Palestinian and American views of them, in language which leaves the reader with little doubt as to where to place the blame for the lack of progress in the 22 year-long search for peace.

For example, according to that presentation, Israel “is unwilling to divide Jerusalem, held to be the political and religious centre of the Jewish people”, whereas Palestinians “want East Jerusalem” which “contains the third holiest place in Islam, the al-Aqsa mosque” (with no debatable “held to be” about it). [all emphasis added]

Whilst the five issues defined by the BBC as “core issues” are undoubtedly important ones, they are by no means the entire story. No less crucial issues include the recognition of Israel as the Jewish state and the end to any future claims.

The recognition of Israel as the Jewish state does get a brief mention in the BBC’s backgrounder, under the heading “refugees” where it is stated:

“Israel rejects the idea that Palestinian refugees from previous wars should be allowed any “right of return” to their former homes. They say that this is a device to destroy the state of Israel by demography in order to establish a unitary state of Palestine. For that reason Mr Netanyahu has called for Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state.” […]

“They [the Palestinians] refuse to recognise the concept of Israel as a “Jewish state”, saying that this is unnecessary and that it ignores the Israeli-Arab citizens of Israel.”

However, the issue of Palestinian (and wider Arab) recognition of Israel as the Jewish state is an important one in itself and not only in connection with the subject of refugees. A lasting peace agreement cannot of course be brought about without recognition and acceptance of Israel’s existence in the region as an expression of the national rights of the Jewish people, along with an end to the kind of all too prevalent officially sanctioned incitement which encourages Palestinians (and others in the wider region) to continue to view Israel as “Arab land”.

The recognition of Israel as the Jewish state is hence critical to the other core issue completely ignored by the BBC: the end to any future claims. The compromises necessary for an agreement to come to fruition will be painful. Once again Israelis will have to give up their homes, livelihoods and land and the collective experience of the Gaza Strip withdrawal in 2005 has taught Israelis that technical solutions to issues of “settlements” and “borders” do not guarantee peace if the other side does not accept them as bringing an end to the conflict, as of course is the case with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions.

The BBC’s focus on its chosen “core issues” tells only part of the story: it fails to inform audiences of the additional, less technical ones which present real challengesto the achievement of a lasting and final peace agreement and in doing so, fails to meet the public purpose of building “a global understanding of international issues”.

We can see the avoidance of the ‘core issues’ by the BBC related to another story, and current.

Back in December 2010, the BBC reported about the influx of illegal immigrants into Israel from countries like Sudan, Eritrea, and other ‘troubled’ African nations. Though they headline the article Illegal African migrants present quandary for Israel, they don’t actually explain the real nature of that quandary. So the reader is left with the impression that the problem with these immigrants is much like the problem people have with immigration in this country. And as we know all too well, the BBC likes to pretend it’s above any kind of reaction like that.

Perhaps too, the reader might infer that racism is at the core of this quandary, and that Israel doesn’t want this influx of black Africans migrants.
This might be the conclusion, certainly of any ignorant reader, on which the BBC preys, who was not aware of Operation Solomon in 1991, when Israel airlifted 14,000 Ethiopian Jews and brought them to safety in Israel. The actual final airlifts of these Ethiopians was in August last year when 450 were brought in. This was even reported by the BBC at the time.

So what the BBC has not told us is the real quandary for Israel with these illegal immigrants.They are not Jews.
The whole purpose of Israel’s existence is to be a land populated and ruled by Jews. A haven for any and every Jew in the world. They also want to be a democracy, which is why there are also Arab politicians in their government. The reason that Israel needs a 2 state solution with the Palestinians is they cannot absorb that additional number of Arabs and retain Jewish control. The Palestinians are well aware of this of course, which is why they resist legally agreeing to a deal which would finalise this, or make the return of those Palestinian ‘refugees’ who fled Israel during the various conflicts in that region, part of the ‘deal’, knowing full well it would put an end to Israel.

The reason this story is an issue today is because thousands of these African illegal immigrants, who it must be remembered came through Egypt – a safe country at the time, though a far more perilous journey to continue to Israel, just held a protest in Tel-Aviv about their treatment.

One can just imagine how Egypt today, let alone the far more radical countries in the area would be dealing with these protesters. But Israel allows them to protest. So how does the BBC cover this story.

First of all – no mention now in the headline that they are ILLEGAL migrants. Now they are just MIGRANTS.
And still no mention either of what the quandary would really be for Israel to concede to their demands.